A Charming Matrix
by Piper Mary Cherry Milano1
Summary: Phoebe dates Thomas Anderson AKA Neo. Rated PG13 for language


I kinda liked this story, contrary to just about everything else I've written. No matter how hard I wish none of the characters will ever be or have ever been mine.   
  
  
A Charming Matrix  
Phoebe was asleep when she first had her doubts about life, 13 years ago, and she never even remembered it. In her thoughts she was very, very bright, so smart that anyone else would have thought it dangerous. She saw things that no one else could. She heard things in her head sometimes that would have been like torture to other people: sometimes it was to her. But when Thomas Anderson came along, she began to think those thoughts again.  
*Brrrring* The phone rang in the Halliwell manor and everyone rushed to get it.   
"Hello?" Phoebe got there first.  
"Hey, so are we still on for tonight?" Phoebe thought she might melt at the sound of Thomas's voice.  
"Of course", she answered with a smile her sisters wished he could have seen. They knew how happy this guy made Phoebe. Ever since Cole left, she'd been really depressed, and then there was that day at the gym. One... Two... Three... keep going Phoebe, she thought to herself. Ooh, who's that, she stopped benchpressing for a moment to look at someone who was looking at her.   
"Hey, nice work there", the man said, noticing the 50 lbs. she had on each side.  
"Thanks, you, looked pretty good yourself", she said, realizing only afterwards how stupid, and desperate she sounded.   
"Thank you, would you possibly be able to take some time away from your spectacular benchpressing there and come get a bite to eat with me?" he said. Phoebe noticed that he was wringing his hands together so tight that they were scarlet.  
"Only if you have time to stop being so nervous and tell me your name", she replied.   
" My name is Thomas, and it's just that I've heard other guys here ask you out and... you kinda didn't sound too happy about it", a lot of his nervousness left with that sentence.   
"Yeah, well you're not drowning in your ego, so I have an easier time saying 'yes,' did I mention I'm saying yes?"   
And so with that, she'd left the gym with Thomas, and eaten the best lunch of her life.  
"Prue, Prue", Phoebe waved her hand in front of Prue's face to indicate that she was trying to get her attention.   
"Huh- What?" Prue finally came out of her dream world and saw Phoebe.  
"I said I'm going out, do you need anything?" Phoebe was getting more and more considerate of other people lately, not that that was bad or anything.  
"No thanks. Hey, what time are you getting back, we were thinking about all of us going out to dinner tonight... Including Thomas", said Prue.  
"Uh... We should be back around 6:30, we're going to the arcade", said Phoebe.  
"Ok, have fun", Prue gave Phoebe a smile then watched her practically skip out the door.  
"She really likes this guy", said Piper.  
"No joke, I can't wait to meet him tonight", replied Prue. They set about doing whatever needed to be done. At about 3:00 Prue spoke up for the first time since Phoebe left.  
"Hey, Piper, you wanna listen to some music?" Prue was kinda getting bored of the silence.   
"Sure", Piper was up for anything to defeat the quietness also. Prue put Moby/ Play into the disk changer, and got back to work.  
*Rock y'all none stop y'all to the beat y'all the body rock y'all*  
******************************************************  
Phoebe and Thomas were challenging each other in a video game when Thomas pulled her to the side.  
"Hey, Pheebs, you wanna come somewhere with me real quick?" Thomas gave her a to-melt-for smile, and immediately Phoebe said yes. They drove together in Thomas's Geo (Get it? If you don't, you will soon) to an old abandoned building that Phoebe didn't recognize, in a part of town that she knew wasn't good. They walked hand in hand up the stairs, and only once was Phoebe afraid that they would give out, and that once when Thomas had sensed her fear he had squeezed her hand and her fear ceased. He led her into a hall that was bare except for one beautiful painting of an angel with a bow and an arrow shaped like a heart.  
"Cupid", said Thomas.  
"Ah". He then took her into a room with nothing but a phone, and two people; one a white woman probably around 28 or so, and the other an African-American man with a certain way about him, that looked about 35.  
"Phoebe, these are 2 of my friends, Trinity and Morpheus, you guys, this is Phoebe Halliwell, my girlfriend", Phoebe felt almost a tint of pride when he called her his girlfriend.  
"Neo, we have to get going, what did you think you were doing bringing this girl here?" Trinity, the woman, said pretty much ignoring Phoebe.  
"Nice to meet you too", muttered Phoebe under her breath, "Why did she just call you Neo?" she asked Thomas this like the name Neo was a foreign language.  
"Phoebe I have something to tell you-", Thomas/Neo turned to face her.  
"- No! Neo, you can't tell her, you don't know if you can trust her yet!!!" Trinity just about yelled.  
"We have to trust someone, Trinity, you can't just hide at 'home', and wait for somebody to come to us and help, okay, I'm sick of not being able to stop the madness that's going on out there, alright, Damn! We've gotta DO something!!!" Phoebe was scared; she'd never seen Thomas like this.   
"You might as well tell me... Neo, my secret is worse than yours is I'm sure", said Phoebe, trying out the sound of Thomas's new name.  
"What do you mean?" asked Neo.  
"Well, I've got something to tell you also, but you tell me yours first, if she'll let you", said Phoebe nodding towards Trinity. Neo looked at Trinity as if to ask permission.  
"If you can trust her, I can trust her", said Trinity.  
"Ok, here it is, Phoebe... Oh god, how do I say this? Alright, we- you- We live in a world that's umm... Fake, it doesn't really exist... Oh man! This is hard!" Neo licked his lips and tried to start over.  
"We were all grown... in a human farm almost, there are these machines and they grow us. All of us here except you have left the farm. See, your body here... it's not real; I mean it is in a sense, but all of the things you feel, mentally AND physically, were programmed. I mean, you were programmed to feel everything you do. Are you understanding any of this?" Neo had obviously been through this before.  
"A little bit, I think", said Phoebe trying to consume all of the information that she'd been handed.  
"Hey Neo? Maybe it would be better to show her, if you know what I mean", Morpheus finally spoke up and Phoebe noticed his very deep voice was strange, and she couldn't really identify the origin of his slight accent.  
"Well, I guess it's gonna happen sooner or later, might as well", said Neo as he reached for the phone.  
"Hey, what are you doing, what were you talking about? Thomas... Thomas!!!" Phoebe was beginning to get frantic.  
"I'll go first, Morpheus, make sure she gets there safely" Neo turned to Phoebe, "Honey, I'll see you later, okay? I've gotta go. I swear I'll be back, alright, I know, it's really scary, but you've just gotta trust me", Neo hung up the phone and walked over to her for a moment. He pulled her in for a kiss then pulled away, "Ok... Bye" and with that he disappeared into the phone.  
"Holy shit! What did he just do?" Phoebe asked. She didn't get an answer before she was dragged along with Morpheus also into the phone. The colors whirred past her in what seemed like a kaleidoscope of time and space, and she didn't know whether to let nausea take over, or just be amazed. She felt the wind through her hair... But, she didn't. She arrived in a room with so much breathing room, yet she could hardly breathe. She was looking at a shattered mirror as Trinity hooked a lot of cords and stuff to her arms and legs, and the shattered pieces came together.  
"What the Hell?" Phoebe started to reach toward the glass when Trinity said something.  
"Pardon?" said Phoebe.  
"I said, don't touch that, it's really dangerous", Trinity told her.  
"Ready?" a voice Phoebe didn't recognize.  
"Ready," Trinity.  
"1, 2, 3, here... we... GO!!!" the same voice that Phoebe did not recognize. She felt fear tear through her at the speed of light as she tore through the air, or whatever she was breathing. She landed in a pod of some sort, but she never felt the impact. *Probably because what Neo said was true* she thought. She tried desperately to breathe then realized that she was in some sort of liquid. She struggled to get to the top, and when she found that it was so hard she thought she would die. When she made it up to the top she felt something vibrating at the back of her neck, and a wave of sickness spread throughout her body when she found there was a cord attached there. A machine came up right in front of her that seemed to have a mind of its own, and a claw, obviously in its control, came out of no where and went behind Phoebe's back. Before she could even think about what it was going to do, it pulled out the cord form her neck, along with a long rod. It also pulled out at least 10 other cords that she didn't even notice. She was about to pass out when the machine picked her up and carried her over to a slide. *The weird thing* Phoebe noticed *is that it doesn't have feet or anything*. It then dropped her down the slide. She expected to feel the wind flowing through her hair making it spread out all over, and found that there was no hair.   
"Oh, my God", Phoebe said out loud to herself. Before any other thoughts could enter her mind, she fell 30 feet into water so cold she passed out.  
******************************************************  
All that had taken less than 65 minutes, and back at the manor Piper and Prue were still working.  
"You ready for a break?" Piper asked wiping the sweat off her brow.  
"Defiantly, and we so deserve it", answered Prue who had been sweeping every inch of the house the whole time.  
"You know what really ticks me off?" said Piper.  
"That Phoebe's been playing around at the arcade this whole time?" Prue took a shot.  
"How'd ya guess?" said Piper.  
"Oh, I dunno, eldest luck I guess", said Prue her words dripping with sarcasm.  
"Want some iced tea?" Piper asked her older sister.  
"Sure", said Prue. She followed Piper into the kitchen, and watched her put the homemade mix together.  
"What time is it?" Piper said.  
"Uhhhh", Prue paused to look at her watch, "3:30".  
"Do you wanna go see a movie or somethin'?" said Piper.  
"We have no life without Phoebe do we?" said Prue.  
"Well, we chose witchcraft over life, so here we are", Piper waited a minute, "So.... Do ya wanna see a movie?" they both got a good laugh out of that and then actually set out to see a movie. Once they were in the car, Piper decided to ask the question.  
"So, what movie do you wanna see?"   
"How about Miss Congeniality?" said Prue.  
"Seen it", said Piper.  
"Me too, just checkin'", said Prue.  
"Antitrust?" asked Piper.  
"Sounds good to me", answered Prue.   
They got in, bought some overly buttered popcorn, and a large Mr. Pibb, and went into the movie. There was of course, the usual couple making out in the back, and the people who did nothing but watch movies were doing nothing but transforming oxygen into carbon dioxide. The movie ended, and Prue kind of had the chills.  
"Rachel was good in that one", said Piper. They knew Rachel Leigh Cooke cause she was a distant relative, one of the few that they knew about. They kept in touch, and she looked up to them, especially Phoebe. Rachel looked up to Phoebe, like an older sister, seeing as hers had died from a heroin overdose.  
******************************************************  
*Oh my God!* Phoebe repeated. She felt along the smooth surface of her scalp. *Jesus, I'm not trying out for freakin' G.I. Jane*  
But then she passed out, leaving many questions unanswered.  
When she next awoke, the first thing Phoebe noticed was that she was lying on top of some sort of operating table, with dozens of needles in her that seemed to have some chemical in them, because she didn't feel a thing. The second thing she noticed was that her hair was already starting to grow back. She knew all this even without opening her eyes. When she did attempt to open her eyes, the light was so painful that she automatically closed them.  
  



End file.
